Away from The Sun
by The All Real Numbers Symbol
Summary: AUish. Set after Sonic ’06. Many years into the future, Shadow is freed from cyrostatus, only to discover that Sonic failed, and Iblis is free. Now, with the help of Silver and Blaze, Shadow will try to save the world. Without the Chaos Emeralds.
1. Chapter 1

**Away From the Sun**

* * *

**Summary: **AUish. Set after Sonic '06. Many years into the future, Shadow is freed from cyrostatus, only to discover that Sonic failed, and Iblis is free. Now, with the help of Silver and Blaze, Shadow will try to save the world. Without the Chaos Emeralds.

**T.A.R.N.S.:** Well, here I go again. This idea came to me while I was over on YouTube watching a Mephiles music video. Guess it's worth a shot, being as I'm back in a hole with my other stories. Here goes!

**Disclaimer:** If I owned any part of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, you can bet your boots I would not be wasting my time taking Algebra 2.

* * *

"Silver! We can't go in there."

"Why not?" Silver asked.

"It's a military base." Blaze replied.

The two of them had left the hovel they called home, and headed out through the fire-torn land, originally intending to see if they could obtain some food. But Silver's hand-drawn map had been wrong, and somehow they had ended up at the old Guardian Unit of Nations base. Now the white hedgehog wanted to go explore the base.

"Yeah, but look, Iblis destroyed most of it. No one's been here in ages. You can tell from the dust on everything." Silver said. "Besides, maybe we'll find something useful. C'mon, let's go."

"I suppose," Blaze relented. She glanced around the scorched landscape, then followed Silver in through the hole in the wall.

* * *

Silver's psychokinetic glow gave off a little light, but the windows were covered with ash, and Silver's tiny bit of light wasn't enough.

Blaze formed a ball of fire in her hand, shedding more light into the room. It was empty, dusty, and everything was coated in ash. Scattered around the room were scorched skeletons.

"Iblis' work, no doubt." Blaze whispered to herself. There was something about the eerie emptiness of the place that made her want to whisper it, instead of simply speaking it.

The two of the walked through the empty rooms, seeing tales of battles fought- and lost- with Iblis.

Then they came across another door. It was different in the fact that unlike the other doors, which had been beaten or knocked down, this door was untouched.

"How odd." Blaze said. "Why would Iblis destroy this place, but not enter this room?"

"Maybe, if we go in, we can find something to help us defeat Iblis!" Silver said excitedly.

"Silver," Blaze began.

"Come on!" Silver retorted. "It's worth a try."

The hedgehog held up his right hand. The pale blue outlines on his glove began to glow as he used his telekinesis to open the door.

Cautiously, the two of them entered the room. Unlike the other rooms in the base, it was untouched. The air, though musty, had no scent of ash in it. The room was dusty, but contained no ash.

"Hey, it's lighter in here too." Silver noted. "Where's that light coming from?"

Blaze looked around the room, then let out a gasp when she saw it.

Against the far wall was a Cryo2 chamber, one of G.U.N's last great achievements before Iblis was freed. The chamber had an almost cross-like design, holding the captive's feet at the bottom, arms on either side, and so forth. And through the glowing, gate-like outer wall, she could see that someone had been frozen in this chamber.

Or rather, something.

It was a black and red Mobian hedgehog, although it took a moment for her to figure that out. The black had been easier to see, but the red stripes had been more difficult, the pinkish glow of the chamber making them hard to see.

"Silver," She whacked the white hedgehog's arm and pointed at the chamber. "Look!"

"Who is he?" Silver asked as he walked towards the chamber.

"I don't know." Blaze replied.

"Maybe he can help us defeat Iblis." Silver said.

"Silver, we don't even know what he was put in there for." Blaze pointed out.

"Well it can't be as bad as what Iblis is doing." Silver replied. "Besides, you're a pyrokinetic, and I'm a telekinetic. We can handle him."

With that, Silver lifted a hand again, and used his telekinesis to pull open the Cryostatus chamber. The front half of the chamber hit the floor, then the black hedgehog fell forward, out of the chamber.

Before he could hit the ground, Silver used his telekinesis to catch the other hedgehog.

"I wonder how long he's been in there." Blaze said.

"Me too. C'mon, let's get him back home." Silver said. He used his telekinesis to keep a hold of the hedgehog as they hurried back out the door. At the door, the white hedgehog paused and used his telekinesis to carefully replace the door.

The Mobians retraced their steps through the base, then hurried back to their home.

* * *

Twenty-five minutes after Silver and Blaze left, taking the black hedgehog with them, another hedgehog arrived at the deserted base. He walked through the building, not disturbed by the dark or the skeletons.

He walked without stopping until he reached the room Silver and Blaze had found the black hedgehog in. Without bothering to open the door, he melted into a puddle of dark slime and oozed underneath the door.

Once on the other side of the door, he reformed into his normal form, that of a crystalline hedgehog.

It gave him pleasure to come here, to know and see that his nemesis was sleeping in suspended animation, that the other hedgehog would never be able to stop him.

Suddenly he stopped. Rage growing inside of him, he looked at the destroyed Cryo2 chamber in front of him. The front of the chamber had been ripped off, and the other black hedgehog was nowhere to be seen.

Mephiles nearly let out a shriek of rage. Someone had freed Shadow, and that could only mean trouble.

He would not be defeated. Especially not by the Black Arms crossbreed. He would not allow a repeat of what happened at the Soleanna disaster.

Shadow would be stopped.

* * *

**T.A.R.N.S.:** Ah, drama. I love it. And so the story begins. Now, story notes. I was originally going to call this fic 'Someday' (after the song by Nickelback) but then I tried out 'Someday' on the search engine, and saw it had already been used in a title 993 times. Scratch that idea. So I named it this after the song by 3 Doors Down. So, there's the pointless story note for the day.

Also, why is it that they have a character filter for Marine the Racoon and not one for Mephiles the Dark? I didn't even know that racoon character existed until I saw that name there. But whatever.

Anyway, please leave a review and tell me what you thought.


	2. Chapter 2

**Away From the Sun**

**Chapter 2**

* * *

**T.A.R.N.S.:** Alright, in this chapter, we're going to meet an OC I designed for this story. Plus, we're going to get a bit more background.

**Disclaimer:** See first chapter.

* * *

Shadow let out a moan. Being in stasis for so long had made his muscles stiff.

That was when he realized that he wasn't in stasis anymore.

"Hey you guys, he's starting to wake up!" A feminine voice called.

Shadow opened his eyes to find himself lying on a pile of dirty blankets. Grimacing, he pushed himself up on one elbow, then sat up and looked around.

The room was 10 by 15 feet, minimum. There were two other piles of dirty blankets beside the one he was laying on, though most of the blankets were in his pile. Each pile was set against one of the three walls in the room, minus the wall that had the door in it. On the opposite wall from where Shadow was he could see that several feet above the floor was a single shelf containing several lidded bowls and jars.

Sitting next to the pile of blankets he was laying on was a lavender Mobian cat that he recognized.

Before he could say anything, the door opened, and a silver hedgehog and a blue-haired girl entered the room.

"Blaze, what's going on?" Shadow asked.

Blaze was shocked. "How do you know my name?"

"I've met you before, Blaze, you and Silver over there." Shadow indicated the white hedgehog.

"When did this supposedly happen?" Silver asked the black hedgehog.

"It happened when you and Blaze came back in time with Mephiles to try and stop Iblis. Of course, that was before we knew Mephiles was the enemy."

Silver blinked. "I've never gone back in time, Iblis is still at large, I don't know anyone named Mephiles, and I think I'd remember if I met you before. You don't make much sense."

"What do you mean, I don't make sense?" Shadow demanded. "Of course this makes sense. You came back to my time to stop the Iblis Trigger, remember?"

Silver thought about it for a moment. "No, I don't. When was 'your time'?"

Shadow let out a growl. The blue-haired girl decided she'd better speak up.

"So, was this stuff supposed to happen before they found you in stasis?"

Shadow felt as though he'd been struck. "What do you mean by found me in stasis?"

Blaze briefly explained how she and Silver had found him in the G.U.N. base.

"Then Sonic must have failed. We all must have failed." Shadow said. "But why haven't you used the Chaos Emeralds to turn super and stop Iblis?"

"What are Chaos Emeralds?" Silver asked.

"Seven magical gems that some Mobians can use to gain a super form." Blaze told him. "But the last time they were seen was the last time Sonic the Hedgehog used them, 75 years ago."

* * *

The grass underneath his feet was crunching; hard, brittle, and black. It had been three days now, and Shadow was still trying to figure out which was worse, being in Stasis, or the world he'd woken up into.

The tiny, two room building Silver and his friends called a home was half buried into a hill, which, according to Blaze, helped keep the ash and cinders out. For all of their efforts, ash still got in. The whole place could use a good cleaning.

Water was a precious commodity in this new world. Rain was virtually unheard of, happening to any part of the world only a few times a year at the most. This caused problems for Titania, Silver and Blaze's blue-haired friend. She had had the misfortune to be born a hydrokinetic in a world where there was barely enough water for the population.

This world was hopeless. Shadow continued walking until he reached the tree on the hill.

This hill had once overlooked Westopolis, and the tree had once been alive and thriving. Now it was a burnt black skeleton.

Above his head, the black clouds rolled, occasionally flashing heat lightning.

Shadow shook his head. "It's a miracle this place survived…" He let the statement trail off.

The only light in the distance came from The Flames. The city had long since been destroyed.

"Shadow!" The black hedgehog turned as Blaze came racing up to him. "Shadow, I've been looking all over for you. Come on, it's time to eat." She turned and began hurrying back the way she'd come.

Mealtime. It was a pity all the food was inedible. Shadow hid his grimace a followed Blaze back to the house.

* * *

The heat this close to the lava was nearly unbearable to a mortal. But Mephiles wasn't disturbed at all. After the time he'd spent trying to find Iblis, he wasn't going to be deterred by that insignificant fact.

"Brother, are you there?"

A resounding roar answered his question.

"We have a problem, brother. Someone has freed Shadow the hedgehog from suspended animation."

"_And how is this a problem?"_

"He can sense the Chaos Emeralds, no matter where they are." Mephiles replied.

"_Then it's a good thing you've already destroyed them."_

Mephiles let out a growl. "I told you already, I was unable to completely destroy those Emeralds."

There was a moment of silence. _"Can he find the few shards left?"_ Iblis asked.

"The probability is high." Mephiles said grimly.

"_Find him. Bring him to me, and I'll destroy him for you."_ Iblis offered.

If he had a mouth, Mephiles would have been smiling.

* * *

Shadow used his fork to poke at the dark brown sludge residing on his plate. Sitting on their respective piles of blankets, the other three occupants of the room were scarfing their food down.

"What are we eating?" He asked.

Silver, Blaze, and Titania paused.

"Um… That's a good question." Titania told him. "But you probably don't want to know."

Shadow raised an eyebrow. "Is it safe to eat?"

"Yep." Titania assured him, before shoving another bite into her mouth.

Silver had stopped eating now. "But really, what have I been eating for the last six years?"

"Don't ask me." Titania replied. "I just take it out of the can and put it on the plates."

"It's probably some kind of porridge." Blaze said matter-of-factly as she placed another spoonful into her mouth.

"Okay," Silver said as he resumed eating.

Shadow ate two more bites before he gave up and pushed the plate away.

"Something wrong?" Blaze asked him.

"I'm just not used to this food yet." Shadow replied.

"Maybe you'll like desert better." Titania set her plate down and vanished into the kitchen, returning a minute later with four of the sickest-looking apples Shadow had ever seen.

This was going to take a lot of getting used to.

* * *

**T.A.R.N.S.:** Sorry guys, it's just more plot setup. But we're getting to the action. Slowly but surely, we're getting there. In the meantime, please review.

**Nyoshi:** And, if you get a chance, also please check out T.A.R.N.S.' latest story; Kingdom Emeralds: Power of Memories.

**T.A.R.N.S.:** We'll see you next time.


	3. Chapter 3

**Away From the Sun**

**Chapter 3**

* * *

Mephiles was not happy.

Shadow should never have escaped. But he had and had promptly vanished.

Just where had he gone?

For a moment, the happy thought occurred to him that maybe Shadow had fallen into some lava, but then he dismissed it. If that had happened, Iblis would know. Besides, Shadow would have used Chaos Control to prevent that from happening.

But maybe he had hated the he woke up into, so he decided to throw himself into the lava, and never mind Chaos Control.

No, Mephiles decided. Iblis would still know.

Mephiles himself had wondered if maybe the remaining Mobians and humans knew where Shadow had gone. To this day, tales were passed down among the refugees of Sonic his friend's heroic exploits. There would no doubt be rejoicing if one them was to miraculously reappear.

He had been disguising himself as an ordinary Mobian (if a Mobian without a mouth could be considered ordinary) and visiting the hovels the survivors called home. Iblis had long encouraged him to tell where exactly these settlements were located, but he had so far refused to tell.

Life would be boring if it was just the two of them.

He entered the next broken down building the survivors called home. It was time to resume his search.

* * *

"Blaze, where's Tatiana?"

Blaze looked up as Shadow entered the room. "Watch your feet. I think we had some olive oil spilled there, or something. You'll trip."

"Well?" Shadow asked.

"She went back home. She doesn't live here all the time. Other times she's at the metro station in what's left of Central City." Blaze replied as she put a book back on the shelf.

"Hey Blaze!"

The purple cat watched as Silver came darting in. Before she could warn him, he went slipping on the floor, and was on his back a moment later.

Shadow watched as the albino hedgehog got back up. "I found a spring! And there's drinkable water in it, too!"

"Good." Blaze said. "I'll stay here and straighten up. You take all the empty bottles and fill them. Take Shadow, too. I'm tired of him moping around here."

Shadow glared at her.

A few minutes later, though, found both himself and Silver out of the building and headed up the hill, Silver using his telekinesis to hold about twenty-three empty bottles.

"Don't you think twenty-three is a bit much?" Shadow asked.

"Nope." Silver replied. "We have to take as much water as we can get whenever we can get it. So I got all the empty bottles I could find, just like Blaze said. I shoulda brought our big pot, too. Oh well. To late to do anything about it now. Come on. We'd better hurry or the might be dry by the time we get there!"

He raced on ahead, pulling the bottles with him. Shadow walked after him, taking his time.

He caught up to Silver a few minutes later. The white hedgehog was at the spring, though it was the sickliest spring Shadow had ever seen. A trickle of water, draining out of a crack between two rocks.

Silver was already hard at work, Shadow dryly observed. He had almost four whole tablespoons of water in the bottle.

"This is going to take forever." Shadow muttered. He raised a hand toward the rocks, and used a bit of Chaos energy to widen the crack, increasing the flow of water.

"Hey, how'd you do that?" Silver asked as he watched the bottle fill up rapidly. "I've never been able to do anything like that!"

"I used Chaos Control." Shadow replied.

"What's Chaos Controlled?"

"Chaos Control." Shadow corrected. "I used Chaos Control to widen that crack and let water flow better."

"Cool! Now this'll only take half as long."

Shadow exhaled noisily and went over to stand by a charred tree.

* * *

"Halt! Who goes there!?"

"A poor Mobian traveler seeking shelter." Mephiles lied. The humans were very persnickety about letting outsiders in, for fear Iblis or one of the Ifrits would find their hideout.

"Were you followed?"

"No."

The door of the ruined building open, and a human gestured him in. "Then welcome."

He entered the large room, which was dimly lit partly from glowing lanterns and part through a bit of lit that filtered in through some of the windows. Both people and Mobians milled around, some talking quietly, other sitting chairs or on blankets.

"Has anyone else come in before me?" Mephiles asked. "I'm looking … for a friend."

"Just Tatiana, back from her usual trip out."

"What kind is she?" Mephiles asked.

The man scratched his head. "She's like a human-fairy crossbreed or something. I dunno. She comes from one the minor foreign races that used to be on Earth before Iblis."

"No Mobians recently?" Mephiles asked.

"Silver was here two weeks ago, and Apple and Cheese left about six days ago to scout for food, but Silver went back to his home and Apple and Cheese aren't back yet."

Mephiles nodded his thanks and walked away. He'd seen Silver fight Iblis before, and if Shadow was going by a different name, it would not be something as stupid as "Apple" or "Cheese."

A moment later he knocked into someone, causing the cup the girl was holding to fall from her hands.

"Hey, why don't you watch where you're going?" She demanded. "Now look. You spilled my tea all over the floor." With a wave of her fingers, she picked the liquid back up and put it back in the cup. "You're just lucky I can manipulate water." She said as she walked away, sipping her tea.

_Impertinent little…_ Mephiles growled. He could get Iblis here in five minutes, if he had too. But that would blow his disguise. Maybe someone had heard a rumor about an ancient hero miraculously coming back from the dead.

He followed the girl he'd bumped into earlier. It wasn't that hard to keep track of her, being as she was the only one in the building with dark blue hair.

Sitting against one of the walls was an old man. He was wearing somewhat ragged gray clothes, with dark glasses over his eyes. He kept one hand on a wooden cane.

People and Mobians old and young were beginning to gather around him, including the blue haired girl.

"Grandfather Elias, will you tell us a story?" A brown Mobian rabbit asked.

"A story!" Grandfather Elias, as everyone called him, tapped his cane on the ground. Though he was a nearly one hundred years old, and beginning to go blind, he was spry for his age. "Just the thing to hearten us up during these days of battle."

"What battle?" A human woman wanted to know.

"Against Iblis, to survive, take your pick." A Mobian answered.

"Tell us about the legendary hero Sonic." Another person said. "Tell us about how he stopped that Dr. Eggman guy from using the Eclipse Cannon to destroy the Earth."

"We've heard that one a thousand times." Yet another person spoke up. "How about something new?"

"How about something about Shadow the Hedgehog?" The blue-haired girl asked. "Did he ever have some great heroic adventure?"

Elias squinted at her. "Tatiana! I didn't realize you were back." He stroked his white beard, then nodded. "That's an excellent idea. I don't know why I haven't told you about Shadow the Hedgehog yet. Why, he once almost single-handed drove away an entire race of aliens that wanted to take over the earth."

"See, that's something new." The same person from before spoke again. "Tell us about that!"

"Calm yourself, James." Grandfather said as he stroked his beard again. "I'm trying to remember the story."

Mephiles watched, mildly amused, and wondered what embellishments had been made to this story.

"Alright, I remember now. You all remember that Shadow helped Sonic defeat the Final Lizard, right?"

The group nodded.

"Well, this is set after the Final Lizard was defeated, and after Shadow the Hedgehog helped Sonic defeat the Metal Sonic Overload. Once, a comet known as the Black Comet used to circle the earth ever fifty years. It used to be a time for celebration that the comet had reappeared. But this time, there was no celebration. The comet was home to a race of aliens known as the Black Arms." Grandfather Elias began.

"They dropped out of swirling red clouds and began to attack Westopolis. There was only one way they could be defeated. Do you know what that was?" Elias paused to ask.

"The Chaos Emeralds!" A few people replied.

Elias nodded. "That's right. The Chaos Emeralds. But Sonic was helping the military, so they asked Shadow to find the Emeralds instead."

Mephiles felt like laughing. They, being the military, hadn't asked Shadow for anything. But such were legends, which slowly warped over time.

"But the evil alien leader, Black Doom, promised to use his power to resurrect Shadow's beloved friend, Marie, if Shadow would give him the Chaos Emeralds instead.

"Shadow was torn. The humans had fatally wounded his friend Marie, but he also had friends on earth. But if he gave the Emeralds to Black Doom, he could have his friend Marie back.

"The Black Arms and the Military fought against him. Indeed, they both fought against him. The only ones who actually helped him were Sonic and the rest of Sonic's crew. But through their help, he managed to collect the seven Chaos Emeralds.

"The final Emerald was located on the Black Comet itself, and Shadow travelled there to retrieve it. Then, Black Doom appeared, and demanded that Shadow give him the Chaos Emeralds. But Sonic and the others were there, too, and they tried to convince Shadow not to hand over the Chaos Emeralds. Why, even Dr. Eggman joined with Sonic to drive off the invaders, and he was there that day, too."

Grandfather Elias paused for a moment, and the Mobian rabbit begged. "Oh hurry, do tell what happened after that!"

"Hold your horses, Ella. I'm coming to it." Grandfather said, then he continued.

"Shadow wouldn't hand over the Emeralds, but Black Doom took them by force, and sent a paralyzing gas into the chamber they were in to stop the others from coming after him, for he was going to use the Emeralds to destroy the Earth.

"Sonic, Eggman and the others were paralyzed. On top of that, Black Doom sent Death Leeches in to eat our heroes alive!"

A few people gasped.

"But then, Shadow stood back up! For you see, the gas affected all those who were not Black Arms. But he was half Black Arms! The gas didn't affect him."

"I thought he was a complete Mobian." Ella said.

"Oh no, he was a half breed. The only one of kind, if the legends are true. And you've seen the statue of Sonic and his friends in the ruins of Central City, so we all know the legends are true." Elias paused reflectively. "Some day I'll have to tell you the story of how that statue was put there.

"Anyway, Shadow chased after Black Doom, who had already Chaos Controlled the Black Comet down to earth, as part of his wicked plan. Shadow used the Chaos Emeralds the turn super, while Black Doom achieved his own ultimate form, Devil Doom. The two battled each other, despite Black Doom's attempts to control Shadow's mind.

"It was a hard battle, but in the end Shadow was victorious, and defeated Devil Doom. Then he teleported down to Earth and brought the comet back up to space. He left it in front of Space Colony Ark, and used the Eclipse Cannon to blow it to pieces! And that was the end of the Black Arms."

A few people in the crowd clapped. Mephiles turned and walked away. He'd have to remember this place for future reference.

"Did you find your friend?" The doorkeeper asked as Mephiles headed back for the door.

"No. I'll keep looking, though." Mephiles said, then walked out the door.

-

Tatiana finished her tea, mulling over the story. At least she had something she could tell Silver and Blaze now.

Then a thought occurred to her. That Black hedgehog she'd bumped into earlier looked just like Shadow, except the stripes were a different color. And the bluish-gray one didn't have a mouth.

She paused. Did he have a mouth, or didn't he? She couldn't remember, but it seemed like he hadn't had a mouth.

_Nah._ She shrugged it off as she went to return her mug to the kitchen. A Mobian not having a mouth. That was impossible.

Wasn't it?

* * *

Despite all that work, they'd only been able to fill fifteen bottles before the spring ran dry.

Shadow watched without making observation as Silver stuck a cork in the last bottle and added it to the ones telekinetically floating to his left. The ones on the right were empty.

"That should last us for awhile." Silver said as he stood back up. "Let's go back home."

As the two walked, Silver continued. "It's sure been quiet lately. Iblis hasn't attacked in awhile. It's not that I want him to attack, but it's gonna happen. He's due for one anytime now."

Shadow didn't reply. Silver didn't notice.

"I wonder what's for lunch today. I'm starving!"

"Yes, indeed. I wonder." Shadow said as he rolled his eyes.

There was a rumble of thunder off in the distance. It had been doing that all day.

"Well, I'm tired of walking." Silver picked up and flew away. Shadow turned on his hover skates and skated after him.

As Shadow had expected, it was the same black slop from yesterday. He only ate three bites before he decided to quit.

"Are you gonna finish that?" Silver asked.

"No. Feel free."

"Thanks. Hey Blaze, you want some?" Silver asked.

"I'm good." Blaze replied.

And with that, Silver commenced with finishing both his plate, and Shadow's.

"You don't seem to like this food very well, Shadow." Blaze observed.

"We should take him to visit Techno." Silver said, his mouth full of food. "Techno always has good food."

"And who is 'Techno'?" Shadow asked.

"Techno?" Blaze repeated. "He's a good friend of ours, helps us out on certain occasions."

"Though he doesn't do much against Iblis." Silver pointed out. "But he's got this big underground greenhouse that's always brightly lit, and he grows food like you wouldn't believe! It's all fresh and tasty…"

That, Shadow deduced, probably meant it was like food prior to Iblis.

"Oh, and Techno's not his real name." Silver added. "That's just what we call him, 'cause he's good with gadgets. His real name's Miles Prower III."

* * *

**T.A.R.N.S.:** Oh, PLOT TWIST!!! And it's Tails' grandson. Ah yes. More about that later.

Also, in the story that Grandfather Elias was telling, you may have noticed things were messed up, for example: Final Lizard instead of Finalhazard, Marie instead of Maria, Metal Sonic Overload itstead of Metal Overlord. Like I had pointed out with Mephiles, legends warp. It'd be really fun to go seventy-five more years into the future and see what legends are being told about Sonic and the gang out there. But I'm not going that far in the future.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed. We should be getting the plot a bit farther in the next chapter. Please leave a review and tell me what you thought.


End file.
